


if you're lonely –

by blackwood (transjon)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Bullying, Canon Asexual Character, Friends to Lovers, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Exploration, He/Him Pronouns For Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Implied/Referenced Sex, Kissing, Lesbian Daisy, Mental Health Issues, Mild Transphobia, Mutual Pining, Other, Sexuality Crisis, Slight Misgendering, daisy experiences cute aggression and contemplates telling jon to get out of her school the fic, discussions of misogyny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28593573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: Does he see her, when he looks at her? Does she see him? Does anyone see anyone else, if they can barely see themselves?
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 43
Kudos: 62
Collections: t4tma week 2021





	if you're lonely –

**Author's Note:**

> okay this au is actually much more important to me than i thought it would be. the title is from wake me by bleachers
> 
> some notes here -
> 
> first, i know daisy is in canon decently older than jon, but ive made them the same age here for... the sake of convenience mostly. speaking of their ages, i refer to this as the high school au, but their ages can be anywhere between 13 and 16, my grasp on writing characters of specific ages is not great. in that way this fic is very similar to riverdale the tv show (affectionate)
> 
> secondly, daisy throughout identifies as a lesbian, jon isnt a girl, but jon is okay with being included under "people someone who is a lesbian would be interested in dating." jon knows for a decently long time that daisy is a lesbian and like... makes the choice, i guess, to - not necessarily pursue or have a crush on her exactly (like, first because he doesn't, and second because you don't really choose to have a crush haha), but he does decide to do something about his crush on her with the knowledge that she identifies as one. daisy on the other hand has some confusing thoughts about whether she's allowed to like jon and be a lesbian (and to her changing her identity label isnt really something that she wants to do, so her internal thought process is more about fitting jon in than it is about trying new identity labels based on her crush on jon, if that makes sense), and as a result also has confusing thoughts about what gender means to her.
> 
> secondly part two, both jon and daisy are isolated from any trans and sapphic (and general queer) spaces or communities here, and their understanding of sexuality and gender are very like, coming from within themselves and very basic pragmatic definitions of sexualities. daisys first and only touch to the concept of Being Trans in a way that isnt binary is jon, and she pokes/prods and tries to get him to talk about it occasionally in ways that are making him uncomfortable, not because of any specific questions, just because she's pushing when he's said he doesn't know how to explain it. she's doing it because shes also trying to figure out how to know if youre a girl/not, but jon doesnt know that, and it also doesnt really change the fact that shes stressing him out haha.
> 
> secondly part THREE, **the narrative/daisys internal narration misgenders jon in the first few sections,** because she doesnt yet know jon isnt a guy. i understand that this might be jarring. 
> 
> thirdly, jon is like... gender = no, except like, if a girl sees me as like, ~close enough to girl because she likes girls that's good. he doesnt offer any other pronouns than he/him but daisy really doesnt ask either. jon experiences body dysphoria, which is discussed towards the end. jon is also ace and sex repulsed (which isnt really dug into that much), and that gets brought up, although that is really the only reference to sex in the fic, and **the only thing the "implied sex" tag refers to**. the sex repulsion and the dysphoria are obviously linked in that you cant really untangle complicated feelings like that from dysphoria vs asexuality, but i only mean that as in that his asexuality and dysphoria inform each other, not that his sex repulsion/asexuality are a result of his dysphoria. i imagine jon identifies more closely as "just jon" than he identifies as ace, bi, or nonbinary, but if we were to split his identities like that i do think he's ace/bi/nonbinary. 
> 
> fourthly, i feel like i gotta warn for both violent bullying/peer abuse, and on a lesser level about daisy being sort of uh, not aggressive or mean, but pushy and like, the dominant friend, and sometimes pushing jon to talk/do things (nothing like sexual at all dw lol - like getting up to go wash his bloody face) when hes resistant to it. its kind of the more childish/immature version of their s4 dynamic. both of them are very bad at social stuff and it kinda shows. jon tells daisy to stop poking/pushing him at one point, and she does. 
> 
> Finally. GOD I LOVE THIS AU.... have fun .

Underneath the tree is where Daisy sits and reads. 

It’s shaded and the ground is mossy but dry, most days. When she sits down she can cross her legs and lay her book in her lap and lean back against the trunk of the tree. It’s not outside of the school grounds, just far away from the building, so even if the teachers don’t like that she goes there they can’t do anything about it, and she likes that. 

The tree is old. It’s been there since before the school was built. There’s old pictures on the glass-screen corkboard between the cafeteria and her biology classroom, with the pictures of old headmasters and newspaper clippings and faded old awards won decades ago. The tree was small, and then it grew, and then it was old. Just like that. Daisy also likes that. 

“That’s my spot,” she says. 

The boy sitting underneath _her_ tree in _her_ spot looks at her with dark, startled deer-eyes. “Oh.”

But he doesn’t move. Daisy looks at him, eyes narrowed, and he looks back, almost like he doesn’t really know what she wants him to do. “So,” she says, “get up.”

He looks away, and then back at Daisy again. He’s got a thick book in his lap. Just like the one Daisy’s carrying in one hand. “I was here first.”

“It’s my spot.”

His lips twitch at the corners. “What are you going to do about it?”

She’s bigger than he is. She’s grown all summer and she’s a head taller than all the girls in her homeroom now. The boy underneath the tree is sitting down. The boy underneath the tree has thin limbs. He would reach to Daisy’s chin if he were to stand up. 

“Whatever,” she says, and turns around. “It’s not that great of a spot anyway.”

–

His name is Jon and he’s in Daisy’s history class. He pulls his hair back into a tight ponytail with both hands and ties it with a rubber band, which makes Daisy scowl, because even she knows that’s bad for your hair. 

Daisy doesn’t like him. Daisy doesn’t talk to him. Jon doesn’t try to talk to her either, so it doesn’t really matter. Jon has these wrists that look like he’s just got skin holding bones together. He’s got these thick books he reads far too quickly. Daisy wonders if he even actually processes any of it, or if he’s just trying to show off, or impatiently jumping from sentence to sentence trying to find anything to grab his attention. 

Jon’s hand is always up. Sometimes he answers before he’s called on. Daisy slides halfway under her desk with her hands in her lap and pretends to pay attention. Outside the days are bright or rainy or gloomy or snowy. It’s still mostly summer, so they’re bright or rainy most days. Daisy looks at the floor where dozens of dirty shoes have tracked mud all over. The sole of her trainer squeaks and whines when she rubs against it. 

“Alice?”

“What?”

She doesn’t like this teacher. He doesn’t like her either. It’s fair. “Can you tell me one reason for the French Revolution?”

“I don’t know,” she says, and kicks the floor again. “I didn’t do the homework.”

Jon looks at her. He’s got deer-dark eyes. Or maybe a cow. Long lashes. Daisy’s only gotten to see a cow up close twice. One of them knocked her backwards. The other let her feed it grass from the palm of her open hand. Jon looks at her and when she looks back he looks away again. 

–

In the dim-light cracked tile bathroom she looks at herself in the mirror as she brushes her teeth with enough aggression to make her gums bleed. Something about the shape of her arms. Something about the shape of her cheeks. She spits blood and foamy toothpaste into the sink and imagines herself as a rabid animal. She doesn’t care about Jon, who’s in her history class, but she thinks about him anyway. As a rabbit. As a deer. Is she a wolf? She thinks about that sometimes. Her teeth and this ball of something intangible that she sometimes feels expanding inside of her chest. She rinses her toothbrush and sets it down. Her mouth still tastes like blood. 

–

The next time Daisy goes to sit under the tree Jon’s not there, which is good, because Daisy wants to be alone. It’s a nice enough day. Just enough sunlight filtering through the leaves for her to be able to read. Just cool enough for her to keep her jacket on. 

On her way back from the tree she runs into what seems like a fight ring. She doesn’t care at first. Sometimes fights happen, except this time she recognizes the person in the middle of it. 

Jon. He’s got that stupid rubber band wrapped around his twig wrist. He’s on the ground. Doesn’t seem like a fight to her, if one of them is just lying there and pretending to not notice he’s being kicked at all. 

“Leave him alone,” she says evenly from behind them. “Or I’ll break your legs.”

The boys are younger than both of them. They’re shorter than Daisy, but taller than Jon. There’s only three of them. Daisy can take them, and if they go tattling she can cry on command, and if she’s going to be forced to wear her skirt until the temperature drops below freezing she’s going to use everything that comes with that to her advantage. 

“Right,” says one of the boys. “Love to see you try.”

Daisy straightens up, which leaves her towering several inches over the boys. “You want to go one at a time or should I plow you all down? Who wants to go first?”

Boys are always all talk. Boys always think they can take her, until she makes herself aggressive, and then they change their mind. They scuttle away like frightened crabs. Jon, still sprawled on the ground, looks at her with a face that’s almost totally blank. “You okay?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says. 

“Gonna get up?”

Jon blinks, and then looks around as if he hadn’t even really realized he was on the ground to begin with. “Sure,” he says, and gets on his knees, and then stands up. He dusts off his uniform trousers. They’re wrinkled and stained, now. 

Daisy looks at him and wonders. Do they do this often, she wants to ask. Do you want to tell someone, she wants to ask. There’s other questions that refuse to turn into words, too. He’s so scrawny. Daisy wants to kick him, too. Just for the crime of being too small for his own good. 

She hesitates. “Walk you to class?” she asks finally. 

“Okay,” he says softly. Like he doesn’t really care either way. Like it doesn’t really matter to him. 

–

Daisy doesn’t care about Jon. When he shows up in her spot again she raises her brows in annoyance. 

“Oh,” he says when he spots her. 

She stops. Puts her hands on her hips. “I thought I told you this is my spot.”

Jon shrugs. “You don’t own it.”

Which reminds Daisy that she doesn’t even _like_ him. “Maybe I’ll just pick you up and throw you,” she says. 

Jon doesn’t even look at her. “Go ahead.”

Daisy takes a step forward. Jon doesn’t look up. Daisy stops, and clenches her fingers into fists uselessly. “Why?” she asks.

Jon looks up at that. Something on his face wavers. “Why what?”

“Why do you need this spot. There are other trees.”

“I like this one.”

Daisy barely holds in a genuine growl. “This is my tree.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Grow up.”

There’s this bruise inside of her that she presses down on when she gets this mad. Emotionally, at least. It’s somewhere between her ribs, and if she imagines herself digging her fingers into it she can focus on the pain instead of what’s really making her mad. Her therapist didn’t really think it was the best coping mechanism she’s come up with, but the fact that it wasn’t physical like scratching the insides of her arms was means that she’s officially allowed to do it. 

“Next time I won’t help you,” Daisy threatens. She kicks the ground. A chunk of moss flies through the air. 

Jon goes quiet. “Fine,” he says. “See if I care.”

Which isn’t what she’d wanted him to say, really, although she’s not sure if she knows what she did want him to say. If she wanted him to say anything at all. “Fine,” she says, and turns around. 

–

It’d be easier if she could just ignore him. If she could stop looking at him. If she could stop keeping her eyes on him whenever they’re outside. During lunch. The three boys look at Jon, and then they look at Daisy, and Daisy bares her teeth like a dog, and they look at her and walk away. It’s not really because they respect her. It’s because they’re scared of her, which is better. She has all the power and none of the responsibility. None of the pressure to maintain their respect. 

But just because she keeps them away doesn’t mean Jon doesn’t get pushed around. She’s walking across the football field when she spots him, lying on his back in the grass. She gives her tree, visible in the distance, a longing look and then takes a sharp turn to walk to him instead.

“What are you doing?” she asks when she’s within hearing distance. 

Jon’s got his eyes closed. He’s breathing evenly. On the grass next to his face is his book. It almost looks like he’s just taking a nap, except he’s got a split lip, too, and blood running down his chin. “Lying down,” he mumbles, and then licks his bottom lip. The blood smears around with the added moisture of his saliva, and he scowls at the taste. 

“Did someone hurt you?” she asks. 

“What do you care?” he asks back. “You already said you’re done helping me. And I told you that’s fine.”

Daisy wants to kick the ground again, except she’s too close to Jon to do it without also kicking him in the shin. Instead she makes a face. “I’m not going to just leave you to bleed out on the field, God. What if you _died_. Then what.”

Jon opens his eyes. “I’m not _dying_.”

“I don’t know that,” she says. “You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just a split lip.”

_Just_ a split lip. “What the fuck happened?”

Jon moves so he’s propped up on his arms. His eyes are a little wet. “What do you think happened?”

Daisy’s mouth twists into a thin line. “Can you just talk to me?”

“Why?”

This time Daisy does kick the ground. A little tuft of grass comes out of the ground and flies a few feet. “Because I asked.”

Jon makes a face like she’s asking him to share some kind of a deep secret. “Lost a fight.”

“Against who?”

Jon looks away. “I don’t know.”

“Fine,” she says. “You need to get cleaned up.”

“I’m fine,” Jon says. He goes to lie down again, but Daisy knocks her shoe against Jon’s shin, which makes him sit back up again. “ _What_?”

“Get up,” she tells him. “It’s going to dry on your face. God. Gross.”

Jon scowls at her, and she scowls back. “Stop kicking me,” he says. 

Daisy knocks her foot against his shin again. “I’m not kicking you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m barely touching you.”

“You’re kicking me.”

“Get up and I’ll stop.”

Jon gives him a petulant look. “Do you think that’s going to make me want to go anywhere with you?”

“I don’t care what you want,” she says. “Get up.”

And Jon, still scowling, still bloody, gets onto his feet. 

–

The next time she sees Jon at the tree she throws her hands up in the air and goes “God, whatever. Can you be quiet?”

Jon gives her an odd look. “I don’t usually talk when I read.”

Daisy plops herself down on the ground. “You better not.”

The corner of Jon’s mouth pulls into a half-smile. “You can punch me if I do.”

Daisy smiles, too. “Deal.”

–

Daisy’s bedroom is dusty and cold in the winter. Outside the rain patters against the sidewalk and the trees and the roof of their house. She’s not sure where Jon lives. She’s not sure about much of anything when it comes to Jon. Outside, by the tree, they don’t talk. Inside the stuffy, dusty classroom they share for one class period a day Daisy watches Jon, who never looks back at her. When she walks him to class after lunch, after they’ve gathered their things and Daisy’s made sure there’s nothing stuck to the back of her skirt, she tells him she’s going to scare everyone else away. She opens her mouth and growls. Jon looks at the whites of her teeth and smiles faintly, but he walks with her anyway. 

–

Eventually, a few weeks later, Jon closes his book – the book they’re both reading, because they read the same books at the same time now – and with his eyes closed leans back to rest his head against the trunk of it. 

“What?” Daisy asks. “Did you finish it?”

“No,” Jon admits. He cracks one eye open. “Just tired.”

“Okay,” she says, and doesn’t ask further. Jon doesn’t elaborate either. Daisy goes back to her book, and Jon stays quiet, just like he’d promised when she’d given him the half-heartedly earnest permission to share this spot with her. 

It’s hard to focus on the book, though. Daisy reads the same sentence four times in a row before giving up. “Want to go to the movies?” she asks. 

“Now?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

Daisy scoffs. “After school. Why would I – of course not right now. I’m reading.”

Jon shrugs. “Okay,” he agrees. He’s pretending not to care. Daisy sees through it, because Daisy, too, is trying to pretend she doesn’t care either way.

“Cool,” she says. 

“Cool,” he agrees. He closes his eyes again. 

Daisy tries to focus on her book again, but Jon, with those even, deep breaths, and those barely parted lips with a still-healing cut crossing over the middle of his plush bottom lip keeps cutting between her eyes and her book. She wants to tell him to stop, but he’s not really _doing_ anything, except existing near her, and if she was to tell him that he might just get up and leave, which isn’t what Daisy wants. She looks at the page, and tries to process the words, and doesn't succeed. She slams the book shut loudly. 

Jon flinches but doesn’t open his eyes. “Did _you_ finish it?” he asks. 

“No,” says Daisy. “Distracted.”

“By what?”

Daisy can’t say _you_ , because it wouldn’t make any sense, because it doesn’t make any sense. “It’s cold,” she says instead. “My legs are freezing.”

Jon hums. “That’s too bad.”

“Yes,” Daisy agrees. “Yes, it is.”

“I know you wanted to finish it today,” Jon says. His voice goes soft in an odd way. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not _your_ fault,” Daisy says, even though she kind of thinks it is. “I’ll just finish it after school.”

Jon nods decisively. “That way we can talk about it tomorrow.”

“Or before the movie.”

Jon’s eyes move under his closed eyelids. “I don’t know about that,” he says. “I still have a hundred pages to go.”

“So do I,” says Daisy. “I dare you to finish before eight.”

Jon smiles. That crooked, strange smile. “You’re on.”

–

“I’ve never really had boy friends,” Daisy confesses. She hasn’t ever really had friends, period, but this is also true. The friends she’s had have mostly been girls. “Not sure what you do for fun.”

“Not a boy,” Jon mumbles. He digs his fingers into the still-green grass. 

Daisy raises her eyebrows. “Okay,” she says. 

“If you’re not going to believe me then don’t,” he says. “I don’t care.”

There’s this quiver of his lip that makes it obvious that he does care. That it’s not a secret, exactly, but not something he’s trusting her with lightly. Sharing enough knowledge to test the waters. Maybe a little more than that, really. Something that maybe he wasn’t going to say but that just came out, and that he’s going to have to pretend isn’t that big of a deal. 

“I do believe you,” she says. No reason not to, really. “Girl, then?”

“No,” he says, although he sounds a little hesitant. 

“Then what?” 

Jon shrugs. He picks out a blade of grass, and then another. “Does it matter?”

Daisy puts her hand over Jon’s to stop him from pulling more out from the ground. “To who?”

“You,” he says, and then scoffs like it should be obvious. 

Daisy shrugs. “I just like to know.”

Jon starts pulling out grass with his other hand. Daisy moves so that she’s sitting in front of him with her legs spread so that she can put her other hand over that hand. “Robot,” he says. “Maybe an alien.”

“You’re not a robot,” she says. “Or an alien.”

Jon looks at her with eyes that aren’t full of hostility as much as they’re full of something that desperately tries to pretend to be hostility. “Thought you believed me.”

She squeezes both his hands in hers with some level of aggression. “I thought you were going to actually tell me.”

“I am. Not my fault you’re not listening.”

Daisy growls. Digs her fingernails into his hands. “You’re not.”

Frustration flashes in those deer-rabbit-cow eyes. “ _Why_ ,” he says slowly, “do you _care?_ ”

He’s the one who brought it up. Who said it. Who’s trying to walk it back now. Who’s poking and prodding to see if he needs to just say nevermind and pretend it never happened. She’s just making him say it for real. 

“Because,” she starts, and then hesitates. She just wants to know. She just _wants_. “Because.”

Jon opens his mouth. Daisy, without waiting for him to speak, surges forward and kisses him. 

–

Daisy is a lesbian. Daisy knows this. Daisy watches movies and looks at the girls with the lip-gloss smiles and the soft curls and wants to kiss them, and she knows this means she’s a lesbian, because that’s what that _means_. Daisy wants to kiss girls and she doesn’t want to kiss boys and that means she’s a lesbian, and she knows this, and she, despite knowing she can’t tell her mother, doesn’t think she has any issue with that. It’s alright. 

So Daisy is a lesbian. 

So she wants to put her hands in Jon’s hair and pull. So she wants to throw him to the ground and hold him down and kiss him. So she wants him to fight back until she’s got him subdued, a knee on the dip of his back, breathing harshly into the wet grass of the football field. She wants him to let her kiss him. Not because he’s scared of her or because she’s making him, but because she won it fair and square, and that was the deal, and because he wants her to kiss him. Because it makes more sense that way. Because she wants to press into that tender spot inside her ribcage and wring things out and make blood fill her mouth, and she wants to dig Jon out from within himself.

So Daisy _did_ kiss him, and he didn’t fight it, and he kissed back clumsily, and when she pulled back, a string of saliva still connecting them until Jon broke it by wiping his mouth, he didn’t look upset. He just looked like he wasn’t sure what she’d done it for, and when she’d apologized Jon’d smiled, faint and crooked, and said _it’s fine_. Daisy had felt the _I don’t mind_ in his mouth but he’d refused to let go of it. Like a dog refusing to let go of a toy. He’d just swallowed it back down. 

She spits into the sink and frowns at her face in the mirror. Jon isn’t a boy, he says. Jon isn’t a girl, he also says. Where does that leave her, she wonders. Where does that leave Jon. Where does it leave either of them? 

–

When she shows up to school with her head shaved Jon’s eyebrows rise up all the way to his hairline. After class he comes up to her, which ignites something inside her. 

“What happened?” he asks. 

Daisy shrugs. “Needed a haircut.”

Like it’s simple. Her mum hasn’t seen it yet, but when she finds the bathroom bin full of blonde hair she’s going to have a fit. She’s probably going to be in trouble when she gets home.

Jon’s hand touches her shoulder and then brushes a few strands of hair off of her jumper. “Did you do it yourself?” 

Daisy nods. “This morning.”

Jon looks at her. “In your uniform?”

“Didn’t have time to change,” she tells him. She’d barely caught the bus. Had to put on her tights in the school bathroom before first period. Her tie is probably still crooked. She might get in trouble for it, or she might not. 

“Looks good on you,” he says softly. Like he’s not really sure what to say, but he’s trying. The hand he’s still got on her shoulder moves but doesn’t fall to his side. Daisy’s heart surges into her throat. 

“You can touch,” she says, feeling emboldened, “if you want.”

“Oh,” he says, like he’s not really sure why he would want to. “Sure.” 

She has to bend down a little bit for him to reach, but his fingertips run over the prickly surface of her head gently, lightly. It tickles a little. Jon presses down a bit with his blunt fingernails, scratches over the skin, and then pulls away. “Cool,” he says. 

“Thanks,” she says, and then digs her hands into her pockets, where she’s got plastic bags full of hair ties and scrunchies and bobby bins. “You can have all of these.”

–

“What is it like?” she asks. It’s gotten cold enough that when she wears trousers to school nobody gives her any grief. It makes sitting on the ground more bearable. It also means Jon doesn’t give her weird side-eyed longing looks anymore when she smooths down her skirt, which is weird, and which she doesn’t know how to process. 

“What is what like?” Jon asks. He doesn’t tell her to shut up, even though it would be fair for him to do so.

“Not being a boy or a girl.”

Jon flinches as if startled. “I don’t know.”

“No,” she says. Her tone is a little too close to begging for her liking. “Just tell me. I promise I won’t laugh.”

Jon grumbles. “If you do I’ll leave.”

“I swear,” she says, and scoots closer so that their knees touch. A little closer still, until the side of her thigh is pressed against the side of Jon’s. She considers putting her head on Jon’s shoulder, but he’s not tall enough, which is good, because she shouldn’t do that anyway. 

Jon takes a breath. “Uh,” he says. “It just feels like.”

There’s a minute of silence. Daisy waits patiently. Jon’s hands connect with his face. His knuckles drag themselves over his eyes. “It’s hard,” he admits. “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Daisy looks at him, and Jon looks back. He doesn’t look her in the eye, but he looks close enough. He sighs. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want to wear skirts?” she prompts. “Sometimes you look at mine.”

“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “Everyone would laugh.”

“People already laugh at you,” Daisy points out. Neither of them mention the other stuff out loud, but the implication is there. “And you have me, now, so who cares.”

Jon shrugs. “Maybe.”

Of course it’s not that simple. It never is. 

–

To her mother being a girl is simple. If you’re a girl you have long hair, and you wear makeup, and you like boys. 

Daisy, on the other hand, isn’t sure what being a girl means. For one, she doesn’t like boys, and for two, she doesn’t intend to let her hair grow out anytime soon. The third part she wobbles on. When she was younger the girl she had a crush on put eyeshadow on her, and for a brief moment she forgot how to breathe. She thinks, sometimes, that it’s the only time she’s ever _really_ felt like a _girl_. When she properly knew what it meant, or thought about it with any sort of personal attachment. That fleeting moment with another girl’s hands on her face, with her eyes closed, with the heavy knowledge that she could at any time lean forward and kiss her pressing down on her skull. The desire for her to see her as a girl and to love her for it. Her name was Molly. Daisy wanted her to see her, but she didn’t.

She thinks about the girls in the movies. In the songs. In the magazines. At school. 

She knows makeup and hair and boys aren’t what makes you a girl. She knows this. It’d be ridiculous for that to be the case. Her mother must not think that’s what it means either, because her gran doesn’t wear makeup and scarcely even has any hair left at all, and she’s not sure she’s ever loved anyone, let alone any boys. Or men, she supposes. Maybe, she thinks idly, the issue is that it means nothing. That without these concrete things to touch and define it will crumble into dust under the simultaneous importance and insignificance of itself. A mess of contradictions. 

She thinks about kissing a girl. She thinks about kissing Jon. How his lips had been cold and cracked and scarred under her lips. How she’d slipped her tongue in through the little opening when he’d sighed in surprise, and how he’d kissed her back, even if he’d kissed like he’d never done that before. 

She pauses. Did that make her feel like a girl? Did she want Jon to see her that way? She thinks about Jon. Jon doesn’t know what anything means, it seems. Jon doesn’t know what being a boy is like, or what being a girl is like, or what being Jon is like. Daisy supposes she doesn’t know either. 

–

“Do you want to have a sleepover?” Jon asks one day, and then winces, and hurries to add, “I know that’s kind of childish, but I thought we could read, or maybe watch a movie, and I could help you with homework.”

Daisy, with an apple core between her teeth, makes an intrigued noise. “Where?”

Jon shrugs. His cheeks are flushed. “I don’t care.”

“My mum won’t let you sleep over,” she says. “So it’d have to be your house.”

Jon smiles. “I’ll ask my grandma.”

–

So Jon’s house is big, and empty, and there’s dust in weird places. His grandmother is a stern-looking woman with dark grey hair, and Jon ushers Daisy into his room as soon as she’s got her shoes off.

“Am I not saying hi to her?” she asks as soon as Jon’s closed the door behind them. 

“She doesn’t want to be disturbed,” he says. “But it’s fine, I have a TV.”

So he does. Daisy glances at the pile of VHS tapes by the small TV, and then at Jon. “Cool.”

Jon sits down on the floor with his back against his bed. He’s got a look on his face that Daisy looks at, and tries to identify, and comes up empty. She sits next to him. “So what’re we watching?”

Jon shrugs, but he also smiles. “I wasn’t sure,” he says, a little sheepish. “But,” he gestures, “I do have a lot of movies to pick from.”

Daisy scoots forward on the floor to pick up the pile of tapes, and Jon knee-walks over as well to look over her shoulder.

“ _The Thing_ ,” she reads out loud, “ _Alien. The Shining._ Wow, you’re into horror, huh?”

Jon gives her that crooked smile of his. “Are you?”

Daisy smiles, which makes Jon’s smile widen. “Yeah,” she says. She picks out _Alien._

“You seen it before?” she asks, and Jon nods.

“So many times,” he says, and then smiles. “Let’s watch that one?”

“Sure,” she agrees. 

And when Jon moves closer, gradually, almost unnoticeably at first until he’s got his side pressed against Daisy’s, Daisy pretends not to notice. Pretends not to feel his breath on her skin. Pretends not to feel the pulse of her blood at the back of her throat. Pretends it’s nothing. 

–

She wakes up in the middle of the night to the sound of a car horn outside. For a moment she’s not sure where she is. It’s warm in the room. There’s something even warmer in her arms. Something breathing evenly, twitching in its sleep. 

Jon. 

Daisy pulls back slightly. Her arms are wrapped around his arms, which are pressed against his ribcage, and his face is pressed into her neck. He’s making little restless noises, as if aware of the fact that Daisy’s woken up, and Daisy, with her heart in her throat, lifts one hand up tentatively. Her fingers tangle themselves in his hair, thread through it, fingernails scratching over his scalp in a way she hopes to be comforting. Jon makes a tiny noise and moves closer, hands twitching, and Daisy sighs softly in surprise. 

He’s small, and warm, and something about him like this makes something dark and possessive and aggressive flare up inside of her like a floodlight. Like she’s a predator holding something between her teeth. Like she’s going to drag him all the way to her nest. She doesn’t feel like a girl. She feels like a wild animal. She feels like spitting out foam and blood. She feels like closing her mouth around Jon’s neck just to feel his pulse against her tongue. 

Later, when it’s morning, she wakes up with her arms empty. Jon’s gone, and when she tiptoes out of the room to find the bathroom she finds him in the kitchen. 

“Hi,” he says softly. She could swear he’s blushing. Daisy has the tactile vision of licking his cheek to feel the heat of his skin. Like a dog. Like a wolf. She’s read that wolves try to put their faces inside each other’s mouths to greet one another. That sometimes they try to do it to zookeepers. She wonders about that. About putting pieces of herself inside Jon. Feeding him parts of herself until there’s something more solid for him to grasp and ground himself around. 

Is she a wild animal, she wonders. Is he? Those deer eyes. Dark in the low light again. Long eyelashes. Those thick brows. 

“Do you have cereal?” she asks, equally soft. What she doesn’t say is _can I kiss you again?_ What she doesn’t say is _I don’t know what it’s like either._

–

Outside, in the afternoon sun, Jon sits next to her, and then moves closer until their elbows knock together. 

Daisy raises her eyebrows. “What’s up?”

Jon looks at her, startled. “Nothing.”

“Okay.”

Jon opens his book. Daisy opens hers, too, but she’s having trouble getting started at all. Against her side Jon is warm. His bony shoulder presses into the meat of Daisy’s arm. His curls tickle her neck. 

He’s wearing one of Daisy’s old scrunchies, she realizes, half his hair up in a ponytail to get it off his face, the rest falling on his shoulders. Daisy looks from the corner of her eye, and Jon frowns at the book, and reads, and Daisy doesn’t understand how he can concentrate. How he’s not distracted. She looks at him and thinks, and then she looks at her book, but she’s still thinking, so she looks at him again. 

“Jon,” she says. 

“Mm,” says Jon. He looks up from the book reluctantly. “What’s up?”

Daisy isn’t really sure what to do now. What she wants to say. What she wants to do. Jon’s hair is so soft. His fingers are so long. The wind blows a dead leaf off of one of the branches of the tree looming over them, filtering more and more sunlight through its branches by the day.

“I’m a lesbian,” she says. 

“Okay,” says Jon. “Is that all?”

It’s the tone of someone who’s pretending not to care. Carefully practiced nonchalance. Something about not making a big deal out of something that you know full well _is_ a big deal. Daisy nods. 

Can I kiss you, then, she wants to ask. Can I still kiss you. Can I still feel this way. Will you feel this way about me, too. Can I have both. Is that possible? Am I already pushing my luck?

“That’s all,” she says instead. 

Jon nods. He goes back to his book. Daisy tries to go back to hers too.

–

Jon is a cuddler, which she’s figured out already, because now when they sit under the tree or on the rusty playground swings he moves closer until some part of them is touching in some way. Foot to shin. Elbow to elbow. Shoulder to shoulder. Jon’s head to Daisy’s thighs, once, although that hasn’t happened since.

Under Jon’s thick duvet with the wind pounding against the window like an animal Jon clings to her with both arms and presses his face into her neck. Like he doesn’t realize how hard Daisy’s heart pounds. Like he doesn’t understand how hard she’s trying to keep herself together. 

Jon, to be fair to him, is asleep. Little puffs of breath move his hair as he rubs his nose against Daisy’s skin. Daisy tries not to breathe too hard, because she doesn’t want him to wake up, because she doesn’t want him to be embarrassed. She opens her mouth carefully just to feel out the shapes of her teeth against the cool air of Jon’s room, and then closes it again. 

She wonders. She stands in front of her mirror, and realizes it’s not really about her body, and leaves that alone. She looks at her face, then, and wonders about that. She thinks about Jon. Does Jon think about her as a girl? Does she think about Jon as a girl? She looks herself in the eye and knows the answer to the latter is no. The answer to the first question she isn’t sure of. Does she want him to? She’s not sure about that either. She thinks about the hesitation in his voice when he’d said _no_ after she’d asked if he was a girl, then, if not a boy. How he’d said it. 

Jon’s shoulder against her arm. Does he see her, when he looks at her? Does she see him? Does anyone see anyone else, if they can barely see themselves?

–

Daisy sits on the beach and throws rocks into the water. She sits in her room and throws rocks into the pond of her soul. She thinks about things she doesn’t think about. 

Jon walks down the shoreline with his shoes in his hands. His feet must be cold, and Daisy shakes her head disapprovingly. The seashells crunch underneath the delicate arches of his feet as he walks. His feet don’t touch the water, even when the waves lap the sand and the shells and the rocks. 

“Hey,” she says. 

“Hey,” he says back, and then smiles. “You alright?”

Daisy wants to say no. She wants to say yes. She wants to say I don’t know. The last one she says a lot, but not because she doesn’t. Just because it’s easier that way. Because if she says she doesn’t know it’s harder for people to dig into her words and decide for her what she really means. It occurs to her that Jon might have figured it out as well. Maybe he knows more than he claims. 

“What’re you doing here?” she asks. 

Jon shrugs. “Running errands.”

“At the beach?”

Jon rolls his eyes. “The beach,” he says, “is the _reward_. For running errands.”

There’s the jingle of keys as Jon shoves his hands into his pockets. 

“Cool,” Daisy says. “Well, I was just going home. D’you want to come with?”

Jon hesitates. “I thought your mum didn’t like people coming over.”

“Just sleeping over.”

The silence stretches. Jon looks at her, and Daisy looks back, and neither speaks. Jon glances at the sea, and then back at Daisy. Like he’s battling between choosing her and choosing the sea. Daisy realizes vaguely that if he chooses the glittering, dark, silent sea she’ll understand. 

“Sure,” he says finally. “But not for too long. Promised I’d be home before it gets too late.”

–

The thing about Jon, though, is that he’s not really angry as much as he’s _trapped_ , which Daisy can understand, although she _is_ angry about how trapped she feels. So maybe she doesn’t get it completely. Maybe she doesn’t really have to. Daisy is angry about a lot of things. Homework. School. The hair growing back that she’s not allowed to buzz off again, although she might just do it anyway. 

In Jon’s room, where they have to be quiet so as not to disturb his grandmother, Jon allows her to poke and prod. He takes her by the wrists and closes his eyes and shudders. 

“What does it mean,” she asks. “What does it feel like?”

“I don’t know,” he says every time. This time he pauses, and then continues. “What is being a lesbian like?”

Which takes Daisy by surprise. “It’s when you’re a girl who likes other girls,” she says. 

“I know that,” Jon says dismissively. “I mean what is it _like_.”

Daisy goes quiet. “I don’t know,” she says. “Nice. I like girls.”

Jon rolls his eyes, which is visible through his closed eyelids, somehow. “See what I mean? What does being a girl feel like?”

Daisy bites her tongue. “People treat you like shit,” she says, because it’s the easiest answer. “People tell you what to do and what to be, and if you don’t do it,” she trails off. “You know they don’t let us wear trousers to school unless it’s freezing out?”

Jon makes a noise, and then opens his eyes. “I know,” he says. “I know. I mean, what does being a girl _mean_. How do you _know_.”

“I don’t know,” she whispers. 

Jon lets go of her wrists. His hand balls into a fist. He wipes at his eyes with the knuckles of it, aggressively, as if he’s trying to make tears go back into his eyes. “See?” he says. “I don’t know what it feels like. I just know that I’m not a boy, and I’m not a girl, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“How do you know you’re not one,” Daisy asks. Like she can’t stop. Like she can’t hold the thought inside of her any longer. 

“Stop,” he says. There’s an edge to his voice.

“Okay,” she says, very softly. “Okay.”

–

This time of the year, this time of the day, the ocean is just a big pool of barely-liquid ice. 

Daisy likes that. It’s cold. It’s dark. It tastes salty, when the water gets in her mouth. There aren’t many people, either. Just her and Jon and some dog walkers. Sometimes people sit on the pier and look out at the sea, but today it’s empty. Daisy floats on her back and looks up at the night sky and daydreams. 

“D’you like to swim?” she’d asked Jon, just to have something to talk about, and he’d kicked a rock delicately with the toe of his shoe. Pushed it aside, really. Not really even a kick.

“No,” he says, just as delicate as the movement of his foot. He’d hesitated, then, as if he’d wanted to say more, but instead he’d shrugged, pushed aside another rock. The seashells underneath and over the rocks had rattled. 

Daisy’d shrugged. “Mind if I go in?” she’d asked. 

“Go ahead,” he’d said. “I’ll just stand here.”

He’d said it in a tone that’d been sort of displeased at the prospect. Something about being left alone, with nothing but himself and the seashells and the sand and the rocks. And his damp tennis shoes. Daisy’d looked at him. “I don’t _have_ to,” she’d said. 

“I don’t mind,” Jon’d said. “Go on.”

So Daisy’d toed off her shoes and socks, and then taken off her shirt, first, and then her jeans. She hadn’t bothered packing a swimsuit, and Jon’d looked at her the entire time, this look on his face, and when she’d ran into the waves without looking back Jon hadn’t followed her. 

When she returns from the ocean she’s cold and shivering and Jon, pacing across the sandy stretch of beach by the waterline calls out to her, “you’re _blue_.”

“I’m fine,” she says. Her teeth are clattering. “Take my towel out of my bag.”

Jon hurries to unzip her backpack and dig out the towel she’d brought with her, and then he walks towards her with it spread between his hands. “Here,” he says. His eyes stay firmly on her face, and when she’s wrapped in the towel he starts taking off his hoodie.

“What are you doing?” she asks, rubbing her face with the corner of her towel. There’s sand all over her skin. 

“Giving you my hoodie,” he says, like it’s obvious.

“No you’re not,” says Daisy, and continues drying herself off. “Don’t be stupid, Jon.”

Jon’s mouth twists and turns. “Yes,” he insists. “Get dressed and then put it on.”

Daisy looks at him. The wild animal inside of her opens its mouth. She feels foam drip down the corners of that gaping maw, and then she wraps her fingers around the jaw and nudges it closed again. “Fine,” she says. 

Daisy gets dressed in silence. Her shins are still covered in little sand particles when she shimmies back into her jeans, and her shirt sticks to her still-damp bra uncomfortably. Jon shoves his hoodie at her, and she takes it, and then, without further protest, pulls it over her head. When she gets her head through and pulls the hem down to her hips Jon is looking away. 

“Happy?” she asks. Jon turns to look at her, and smiles faintly. He’s got his arms crossed. He’s hugging himself, actually, because it’s chilly, and Jon’s tiny, and Daisy realizes he must be cold. She opens her mouth to berate him, but he goes “yes. Happier.”

Daisy takes a step closer so that she can knock her hip against Jon’s. Just to see him almost lose his balance. Just to see him squeak. “Thanks,” she says. “You’re going to freeze, though.”

“I’m fine,” he says airily. He’s shivering, though. Daisy reaches for him, hands landing on his shoulders, and pulls him to her chest. 

“Daisy,” he squeaks. 

“You’re _cold_ ,” she says. 

“Mm,” says Jon into the fabric of his own hoodie, and then he goes quiet. Daisy thinks about pulling him inside the hoodie with her. Share the body heat. Like a little tent. Thinks about Jon’s head on her chest, hearing her heartbeat. “Makes two of us,” he finally says. “At least I’m not wet.”

Daisy rumbles out a laugh. “Guess so.”

Jon rubs his face into the fabric of the hoodie. Daisy’s arms, without meaning to, wrap around his shoulders to keep him close. 

Jon freezes. Every muscle in his body tenses in her grasp. “Daisy,” he says softly. 

“Mm?” 

Jon’s arms by his side tense. When Daisy looks down she sees his fingers gently forming fists around his palms. He doesn’t answer.

“D’you want me to let you go?” she asks. Did she do something wrong? She figures they’ve done this before. Underneath their tree they lean against each other. In Jon’s bed Jon rests his head on Daisy’s chest and sleeps. Then again neither of those places is really real. Nothing they do in those places feels real the same way everything else does. 

“No,” Jon says. His voice sounds very small. Daisy squeezes her arms around him a little tighter in a little pulse. Jon’s arms wrap around her waist hesitantly. His bare skin is cool to the touch when it brushes against Daisy’s hand. 

“Okay,” says Daisy. Her heart feels too big for her chest. “I won’t.”

“Okay,” says Jon. His voice doesn’t get any bigger. Daisy’s heart doesn’t get any smaller. Everything stays the same for a very, very delicate moment. 

–

Her mum goes out of town for a friend’s hen party. 

Daisy thinks at this point there’s not really any point in all that. She’s not under any impression that you only get one, or that you only get to get married once, or that there’s an age limit, but it makes her roll her eyes all the same to hear that her mum’s friend Tammy is having a fifth one. 

“Bye,” she says to her mum. Her feet are getting cold, standing there in the doorway with her sock-clad feet exposed to the frost on the front porch.

“No boys,” she says back, opening the car door. “No drinking. I’ll know.”

Daisy closes the front door. Her mum doesn’t come back in to yell at her for it. Daisy waits until she sees her mum’s car pull out onto the street and then she calls Jon. 

–

“Do you drink?” she asks Jon.

Jon who is turning a bottle of cheap wine in his hands thoughtfully startles. “What?”

“Drink. Do you go to a lot of parties?”

“You know I don’t go to parties,” Jon says. He sets the bottle down. “And not really.”

Daisy floats from her seat on the armchair onto the sofa to perch next to Jon, who is sitting stiffly. “Okay,” she says. “We don’t have to drink.”

“No, we can drink,” Jon says, but he sounds a little unenthusiastic. “I just haven’t.”

“What?” Daisy prompts. “Never drank?”

Jon shakes his head. His fingers curl around the neck of the bottle again. “No.”

Daisy reaches for the bottle, too. Taps her fingernails against the glass of it just to hear it clink. “Do you want to?”

Jon fidgets. Pulls his hands back. Bites on his bottom lip, no longer scarred. Funny how well it’s healed. Daisy watches his mouth move. “Maybe,” he says. “Later.”

“Cool,” Daisy says. She gets up. Jon looks up at her, eyes half alarm, half confusion, and Daisy grins at him. “What?” she asks. “Did you think I was going to make you?”

“No,” Jon claims. “I just thought you invited me over because you wanted to.”

Daisy shrugs. Pulls her lip between her teeth and digs around inside of herself. Reaches for that spot between her ribs and decides she feels a little brave. “I just want you to be here. That’s all.”

Jon smiles, then. Daisy watches it settle over his face like sunrise. The wolf inside of her rolls over and starts whining. The wolf inside of her opens its mouth and howls. The wolf inside of her has never felt like this. 

–

Her bed feels more real than Jon’s does. 

“You have so many pillows,” Jon says. He grabs another decorative pillow and throws it onto the floor. 

“They’re comfortable,” Daisy says. “And they look nice.”

“Guess so,” Jon mumbles. “How do you even fit in here with all of them?”

“I put them on the floor when I get in bed,” Daisy says. “Exactly like we just did.”

Well, usually she actually just picks up her duvet and shakes it until all of the pillows on top of it scatter around the room. Jon’s approach had been much more delicate, not to mention much more laborious. 

“Defeats the whole point, doesn’t it?” he says. Daisy holds up the edge of the duvet for him to climb in next to her underneath it. “If you can’t even sleep with them.”

Daisy raises her eyebrows. “I bet your nan has a million pillows on her bed.”

“No way,” says Jon. “She sleeps on like, the floor.”

“No she doesn’t,” says Daisy. “You’re making that up.”

Jon giggles, which is a sound she’s never heard him make before, and goes “no, but I swear her mattress is paper thin. It’s almost the same thing.”

“You can have a bad mattress _and_ pillows!”

Jon shakes his head. “I don’t think she has _a_ pillow.”

Daisy props herself up on one arm. In the dark of her room Jon’s eyes reflect what little light streams in through her curtains from the street. “You don’t know?”

“I don’t really go into her room,” Jon admits. “She doesn’t like me snooping around.”

Daisy rolls her eyes. “Next time I come over I need to see for myself.”

Jon smiles at her, but it’s a little faint. “Maybe. But I swear she doesn’t have any extra pillows. Hand,” he raises his right hand, “to God.”

Daisy giggles, which also isn’t something Daisy does, so then she blushes, but that’s _also_ not something she does. Stuck, isn’t she, she thinks, a little gloom in her head now. Giggly and blushy. Like some sort of a schoolgirl with a crush. Jon smiles at her, crooked and earnest, and it occurs to her that, to some degree at least, that _is_ what she is. 

She wonders about telling Jon. She wonders about what she would tell him. She wonders what he’d say. 

–

The thing about Jon is that he has this tendency to respond to people by faking anger. 

Daisy doesn’t have to fake anything. Daisy _is_ angry, unless she’s with Jon, which is when she’s less angry, and more. She pauses. She’s just _more_. More than anger, she supposes. 

Jon is – Jon feels trapped. She thinks it’s just the school, just this town, just his house, with the grandmother that buys him movies and books and allows him to have friends over any day of the week as long as they’re quiet but that doesn’t really ask or want to know anything _real_. Those are things she understands. Those are things she, too, is trapped by. 

But Jon –

“I wish,” he says, very, very quietly, “that I’d been born with _nothing._ ”

“What?”

Jon’s head disappears underneath the covers. His nose touches Daisy’s chest and then that point of touch disappears too. When he speaks again Daisy has to strain her ears to make out the words through the fabric of the duvet. “Like, down there.”

“What,” she says, “like, you mean like a Ken doll?”

Jon doesn’t say anything. Daisy lifts the edge of the blanket and scoots down underneath it as well. 

“Jon?”

“It sounds stupid when you say it like that,” he mumbles. Both of his hands fold into fists over his chest. He moves them, as if to punch himself, and then stills again. His breath comes out in short puffs. “But. Yes.”

“Because of,” Daisy fumbles with her words. “Your gender? Stuff?”

Jon makes a little noise. “I suppose.”

“That sounds hard,” says Daisy, because she’s not really sure what else to say. 

Jon laughs. “It’s _miserable._ ” He lifts one hand up to his face. Drags his knuckles down his face. “Do you have any idea,” he says, “how obsessed teenage boys are with sex?”

“No,” she says honestly. “I don’t really hang out with them much.”

“Well,” says Jon, “you can’t _escape_ it, because it’s constant. They talk about it _all the time_. And every time they do I want to _die_.”

Which shocks Daisy. “Don’t say that,” she says before she can really consider whether that’s a helpful thing to say or not. “Jon.”

Jon opens his eyes. His mouth goes all straight. “I can’t _help_ it. Do you think I haven’t tried to just get over it?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Daisy says, and then, sheepishly, “sorry.”

Jon looks at her for a moment, and then sighs. His limbs relax slowly. “It’s alright. I just,” he waves his hand vaguely, “I just wish. Things were different.”

Daisy nods. “I’m sorry,” she says. She feels completely useless. This isn’t really something she’s familiar with in any capacity. 

Jon makes a sound that’s as sad as it is angry. “Don’t be,” he says. “It’s not your fault.”

“I don’t like knowing you’re in pain,” she mumbles. She reaches for Jon’s hand. Jon doesn’t pull away when her fingers close around his wrist. “Not as in I wish you hadn’t told me. I mean I don’t like that you’re in pain.”

Jon nods stiffly. “It’s okay. I’m not usually _this_ hung up on it.”

Daisy looks at him. Jon looks back. “Alright,” she says. 

“Alright,” Jon agrees. 

Underneath the duvet in the dark, safe space they’ve created for themselves, with no source of light to illuminate them, Jon’s wet eyes don’t glitter in the lowlight. 

–

Jon doesn’t get _weird_ , really, as much as he gets –

Well. She does have to admit that weird is the only word she really has.

They still eat together and sit outside together and Jon still knocks his knee against Daisy’s, and Daisy still punches his shoulder with a gentle fist when she wants his attention, but there’s something that she can’t catch. Something else.

Jon stops raising his hand in class. Daisy watches him look out the window. Daisy looks at the scrunchie holding up his hair in a ponytail. The scrunchie she gave him. One of them, anyway. She absently wonders if he’s got a hair tie underneath to hold the ponytail together, or if the scrunchie is eventually going to slide out of his hair. Daisy’s own hair is still way too short to tie up, although it has started tickling the tops of her ears. 

But Jon still invites her over, and Daisy still goes, and they still sleep in Jon’s bed, and Jon’s grandmother still doesn’t say hello to Daisy when she comes in, and Jon still makes her do her homework with him, and Daisy still wants to kiss him. 

–

People don’t ever really leave Jon alone as much as they stop picking on him where Daisy can see. 

Daisy isn’t stupid. Daisy knows it still happens. Jon doesn’t tell her, because he doesn’t like talking about it, and because he doesn’t want her to know, and because he just likes to pretend it doesn’t happen in the first place, but Daisy knows. Daisy can smell it on him. Daisy can see it in the way he slinks around and tucks his invisible tail between his shaky legs. 

Daisy puts her hand on Jon’s shoulder and digs her nails into the flesh she finds there and Jon looks at her with an expression that is as much human as it is animal. Rabbit-doe-cow. Long eyelashes. Dark pits of his pupils blending into his irises. “I’m fine,” he says. 

“Sure you are,” Daisy agrees. She’s digging for bruises. She doesn’t find them, so she lets go. Either that or Jon’s gotten better at hiding his pain. “Wanna come over?”

“Can we go to the park?” Jon asks. “I kind of want to be outside.”

“Fine,” Daisy agrees. “But I’m hungry. And it’s cold.”

Jon tucks himself under Daisy’s arm hesitantly on the way to the corner store, where Daisy exchanges her pound coins for a sandwich and a coke. “You can have a bite,” she tells Jon, who emerges out from underneath her arm at the door so he can follow her around a little less close by. 

“Thanks,” says Jon. “But I’m not that hungry.”

“Suit yourself,” she says. Outside the shop it’s already a little chilly, and Jon tucks himself back to the warm spot between Daisy’s arm and side, and Daisy would scoff, except Jon’s being so casual about it, and Daisy doesn’t really want to make him notice it too hard. He might stop. She’s always worried he’s just going to stop. 

“How’s school?” Jon asks. 

Daisy peels the wrapper off of her sandwich and takes a bite. “Alright.”

Jon hums. “Because you’ve been doing your homework.”

“What are you, my mum?” asks Daisy. She’s got crumbs rolling down the front of her coat. “What’s with the tone, Sims?”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Just _saying_.”

“Well,” says Daisy. “Careful what you say.”

“M-hm,” says Jon, and presses in closer. His shorter legs have to take bigger steps to keep up, so Daisy quickens her own pace just to see Jon stumble a bit, to hear him sputter and then go “ _Daisy!_ ”

“You?” Daisy asks. The sandwich isn’t very good, but then again she never expected too much from it. She frowns at it all the same. 

“Okay,” he says.

Daisy hums, and then knocks her hip against Jon’s. Jon doesn’t stumble, because he was expecting it. He turns his head to face Daisy. Sticks out his tongue. Daisy reaches for it with two fingers and Jon turns his head away again, one hand rising to protect his mouth. 

“Bring a book?” she asks when they sit down on the swings. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s cold, though.”

“I told you,” Daisy says, sing-song, and wipes her hands on her trousers. The coke in her backpack seems like an awfully bad idea suddenly. Like if she drinks it she’s going to freeze from the inside out. 

“So you did,” Jon grumbles. He kicks at the ground. Daisy watches his swing go up, then down again. 

“Jon,” she says. 

“Mm,” says Jon. He’s not really gaining any speed or momentum. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

Jon tenses a bit. “Yeah,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Daisy looks at her, and then down, and then at him again. “You’re being weird.”

“I’m always weird,” he says, tone carefully light. “That’s sort of my thing.”

“Stop it with the evasive bullshit,” Daisy tells him. “You’re acting weird.”

“Didn’t notice,” he says. He kicks at the ground harder. This time his swing goes higher. “Sorry.”

So he’s literally going to fly away from his problems now. Daisy growls internally. “You’ve been all quiet and now you don’t want to come over.”

“I’ve been talking plenty,” says Jon. “And I told you, I wanted to be outside.”

On the next downswing Daisy grabs the chains of the swing to bring it to a stop. “Snap out of it. Tell me.”

Jon squirms on his seat. The chains rattle in Daisy’s hands. “You can’t just _force_ me to talk.”

“Guess we’re going to find out.”

Jon’s mouth turns and twists stubbornly. He crosses his arms. There’s a little strand of hair sticking to the swell of his cheekbone. “It’s nothing.”

“Are people bothering you again?”

“No.”

Daisy doubts that’s true. “Is your grandma okay?”

“She’s fine.”

Daisy squints at him. “Then what is wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong,” Jon says. He digs the tip of his shoe into the half-frozen sand. “I’m just cold and tired.”

Daisy yanks on the chains and then pulls on them until the motion brings Jon closer to her as well. Jon, startled, yelps in alarm. “Daisy!”

“Tell me,” she says. “Tell me and I’ll let go.”

It’s a stupid thing to do, she knows. He can get up and walk away. He can untangle her fingers from around the chains. He can yank on the chains or throw his weight on the seat and just make her let go. He can just say _let go_ and Daisy would. 

Instead of doing any of those things Jon slumps forward so that their foreheads are almost touching. 

“Daisy,” he says. 

“Jon,” Daisy says back. The soft curls around Jon’s face touch the skin of her forehead. Jon’s head moves at half speed. Slow enough for Daisy to pull away if she wants to but too fast for her to understand what’s going to happen until it’s already happening. 

His lips touch Daisy’s, and Daisy can’t let go of the chains, and Jon doesn’t touch her either, not with his hands, anyway. Jon kisses clumsy and fast, the tip of his tongue poking out anxiously like he’s going to get graded on how much he gets done in some predetermined short amount of time, and Daisy’s frozen and trembling and _hungry_. His lips are cold, and they tremble against Daisy’s, like he’s shaking from something, be it cold or anxiety or anger. 

And then Jon pulls away, and stands up, and picks up his backpack, and walks away. 

–

Daisy doesn’t follow him.

–

Inside her room Daisy sits on the floor and looks at the pile of throw pillows all over her bed. 

If Jon knows she’s a lesbian and he kissed her anyway. Does that mean he _wants_ her to be both simultaneously. Does that mean he wants to be included with the girls she likes. That he wants to be slotted between Molly and every abstract image of a girl she’s ever looked at and felt longing over. 

She gets up and paces around her room like a caged animal. Like she’s trying to outrun the foaming of her mouth. Like she’s trying to shut the cage door but the thing inside the cage refuses to stay inside. 

Maybe she’s not a lesbian. That’d be easy, wouldn’t it. If she likes girls and Jon, who isn’t a girl, wouldn’t that make her bisexual? She hesitates. Is that her? 

Inside of her there is a pond. Outside the sea is silent. 

–

The weekend goes on endlessly. Snow falls and melts as soon as it hits the ground. Daisy looks out at the sea and thinks. She doesn’t call Jon. 

–

“I’m a lesbian,” says Daisy the next time she spots him.

“Um,” says Jon, eyeing over her shoulder for what must be an escape route. “Hi.”

“Can I kiss you?” she asks, ignoring his wild eyes. “Jon, look at me, can I kiss you?”

“ _What_?”

Daisy’s getting a little impatient. “I’m a lesbian,” she says. “And you’re not a girl. Can I still kiss you back?”

Jon stills, although Daisy’s pretty sure it’s less because he’s less anxious now and more because he’s too shocked to move. “ _What_?”

Daisy wants to growl. The wolf inside of her wants to shove its snout down Jon’s throat in greeting. “You said,” she says, voice even, “that you’re not a boy, but you’re not a girl either, and I’m a lesbian, because I only like girls, and that hasn’t _changed,_ I don’t think, but I like _you_ , and I don’t know what that means. Can,” she pauses. “Do you still want to kiss me?”

Jon gapes at her. “What, you _want to kiss me?_ ”

Daisy barks out a laugh. “I want to – _Jesus_ , Jon –”

Jon opens his mouth to say something, but Daisy’s faster, because Daisy’s always faster. “I can’t figure out what it means,” she says. It’s true. It’s been like a puzzle she couldn’t figure out the pattern to. “I can’t figure out what I’m supposed to feel.”

“You can,” Jon interjects meekly. “You can kiss me.”

Daisy pauses. Her hands on Jon’s shoulders tighten a little bit. “Do you,” she licks her lips. “Do you _mean_ that.”

Jon nods, and then he laughs. “I – god.”

And Daisy doesn’t get why it’s funny, but Jon laughs, and laughs, and eventually she starts laughing as well.

–

In Jon’s bed he puts his head on Daisy’s shoulder and Daisy puts her fingers in his hair. 

He’s awake, this time. He’s warm and sharp and Daisy keeps having to spit out stray strands of his hair. “It’s good,” he says very, very softly. 

“What is,” Daisy asks, equally softly. 

“That you like me,” he says. “And you’re a lesbian.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Daisy admits. “I thought,” she starts, and then pauses, because she’s not really sure what she did think. She shrugs instead. 

“I’m not,” he hesitates. “I’m not a girl. But.”

Daisy waits for him to keep talking, but instead he just shrugs. Daisy nestles in closer and gets her mouth full of Jon’s hair. 

“Okay,” she says when it becomes clear Jon’s not going to keep talking. 

“Okay,” agrees Jon. His dry lips move against Daisy’s skin as he speaks. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”

Daisy nods. Just once. Just stiffly. “A bit.”

Jon sighs dramatically. He rubs his nose against Daisy’s skin, which makes Daisy shiver, which makes Jon make a displeased noise. 

It’s a feeling Daisy isn’t sure what to do with. It’s a moment Daisy isn’t sure how to process. She’s still thinking about whether or not she wants Jon to see her as a girl. If she wants him to see her as something or someone close enough. 

–

So the thing is, really, that Daisy looks at the wolf inside of her ribcage and closes the door to its cage. It sits down and tilts its head and looks at her with a look of longing. Daisy puts her finger on her lips and shushes it. 

She’s still foaming at the mouth. She brushes her teeth and when she spits into the sink it comes out a little pink. She still sleeps over at Jon’s house, and Jon puts his head on her chest, but now before they go to sleep he presses a hesitant little kiss to the skin of her neck, and she responds by kissing a kiss just a little bigger and harder on the top of his head. 

“I don’t know what it’s like,” she admits one night. 

Jon lifts his head just a little bit, bleary-eyed and sleepy. “What is what like?”

“Being a girl. I don’t know how you can tell.”

Jon gives her a tired smile. “See? Not so easy, is it.”

Daisy grumbles. Her nails dig into his back for a second. “I didn’t think it would be.”

“How do you describe a lack of something,” Jon mumbles into her chest, “or the presence of something you can’t define.”

Daisy digs for that wolf, but the wolf’s asleep, now. Daisy should be, too, probably. “Yeah,” she agrees. “I think I want you to see me as one.”

“As a girl?”

She nods. “But I don’t know what it means. So I don’t know how that works, really.”

“Does anyone, really.”

Which is fair, she supposes. Does anyone know anything at all.

“True,” she says. “We should go to bed.”

“We are in bed,” Jon points out. “And I was about to fall asleep.”

“Sorry,” Daisy says. “That’s all. You can go back to sleep.”

Jon kisses her skin, dry and quick. “Thanks.”

Daisy hums. “Good night.”

She can feel Jon smile. When he tells her _goodnight_ it’s audible, too. 

Outside there are cars, and the sea. Inside the room there’s Jon, and her, and whatever nameless thing they keep trying to pick apart like a ball of yarn with no luck. She digs her wolf-claws into the center of it and tries to rip it apart, but it won’t do anything but stretch. She gives up. 

Inside her arms Jon’s breath evens out. Inside her chest the wolf wakes up, and howls _mine. Just mine._


End file.
